Last week I had the pleasure of meeting William Raspberry, the distinguished columnist for the Washington Post. Raspberry is one of the most widely respected columnists in this country. Nominated once for the Pulitizer Prize, later a winner of the Pulitizer Prize, named the Journalist of the Year by the nonpartisan Capital Group, a member of the Pulitizer Selection Committee. His column is syndicated in 255 newspapers and he has been a syndicated columnist for 37 years. Raspberry was invited to my campus to present a "President's Lecture" and he met with various groups, including my class in Political Communication during his visit. When asked about his view of the War in Iraq, he responded with a marvelous story which appeared Monday, October 20th in his column. It's entitled, "The Iraqi Monkey Trap" and can be found in its entirety on www.washingtonpost.com: William Raspberry.

Ok Bob, I'll bite... First of ll allow me to state that I am a card carrying Republican, so what I have to say may disturb you as much as it disturbs me. Secondly, I am an emergency services provider and I have attended numerous classes and trainings on the so called Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMD as it is more commonly know. Why this is important will hopefully become clear in a moment.

When GW presented to the nation and the world that Iraq had WMD I was concerned. The fact that Iraq had already used them made me D*** mad, and on his own people no less! I have also had the opportunity to speak with millitary and civilian "homeland defense" experts about the credibility the threat of Iraqi sponsored WMD based terrorism in the USA. I thought then as I do now that there is indeed a credible threat for this type of warfare.

That having been said, I am also concerned that to date we have found basically nothing to support the UNSCOM resports and the independant sources used to deifne the WMD assesment (incuding I might add, Iraq's own admissions of what thier capabilities are, or were, as the case may be) Hundreds of thousands of gallons of Botulism toxin, VX nerve agent, Anthrax, and other less leathal agents such as blister agents like mustard gas are unaccounted for since the toppling of Saddam. This worrys me and to that I certainly support the President's decision to nullify this threat.

I am very dissapointed that the rebuilding of Iraq has taken so long. I am onfused why the follow up to invasion and toppling a regime dod not address rebuilding key infrastructure and services that would ensure that the people of Iraq would once again be self sufficient. I could care less about their oil, if the environmental front is to be belived, there won't be any oil left in 50 years anyway. What does make me pause is that we as the strongest country in the world can not effectively rebuild what we destroyed.

*** The opinions expressed herein are uniquely MY OWN and should not be construed as an endorsement of any sort by my employers or of any professional associations to which I hold membership. I can dig myself into holes just fine without their help, thank you very much***

I never bought into the idea of rebuilding Iraq in the first place. I also never bought into the idea that we need world opinion on our side via the United Nations.

The sorry fact of the matter is there is no rebuilding of Iraq, without paying too high a price, just like there is not now nor will there ever be a final solution that puts an end to the killing in the entire region.

If you could gather up the opposing groups over there and eliminate all but one, the one least pro to violence, there is no doubt in my mind that that reaming factor, would, within a very short time frame, divide themselves and start killing each other all over again. It is what they do. They have been doing it for a few thousand years. To think we were going to go over there and put an end to it is nonsense.

We need to accept the fact that there is nothing that can be done. That they keep the killing among them selves and are contained to their own region is about the best that can be expected. That containment includes the removal of and the accountability for WMD, by force if necessary if the need arises again.